About Us
Hypha's Team
Hypha’s Management Team
Liam Evans PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Hypha’s management team is led by Chief Executive Officer and founder Liam Evans, who developed the company’s proprietary fermentation technology. He has over 30 years’ experience of natural products discovery, including industrial agrochemical and pharmaceutical discovery with Syngenta and Xenova.
Jonathan Steele PhD
Chief Scientific Officer and Client Project Director
Co-founder and an expert in natural product discovery process design and purification chemistry, Jon’s role as CSO involves overseeing the delivery of Hypha’s contract research services and management of new product development. He has over 25 years’ experience of natural products drug discovery and biotransformation, including previous positions at GSK and Cubist Pharmaceuticals.
Steve Wrigley PhD CChem FRSC
Chief Technical Officer
Stephen Wrigley has over 35 years’ experience of industrial natural products discovery and microbial biotechnology R&D. After obtaining BSc and PhD degrees in chemistry from Imperial College, London, he started his career with Glaxo Group Research Ltd., He subsequently held senior positions with Xenova and Terragen Discovery and was UK Research Director at Cubist Pharmaceuticals and CEO of Recombinogen. Steve manages Hypha’s collaborative and proprietary discovery programmes and leads the structure elucidation capability at Hypha.
Gillian Charles PhD FCA
Financial Controller
Financial Controller Gillian Charles qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte & Touche, after gaining a PhD in molecular genetics from University College, London. She has held senior financial positions with Xenova, Terragen Discovery and Cubist Pharmaceuticals.
Frank Scheffler MBA
Head of Business Development and Global Collaborations
Frank’s experience spans both business development and the biosciences. Following a role in the Research team at Hypha he re-joined the company after completion of his Masters degree in International Commerce at Korea University and an MBA from the Hamburg School of Business Administration.
Neil Cartwright
Operations Manager - EOHSS & Facilities
Neil has over 10 years experience as a scientist covering research, GMP and clean room laboratories in previous roles at Thermofisher, Oxford Biomedica and Adaptimmune.
Neil is responsible for health & safety and facility management at Hypha. He holds a National General Certificate in Occupational Health & Safety from NEBOSH.
Hypha’s Science Leaders
Julia Shanu-Wilson PhD
Head of Scientific Communcations
Julia has over 30 years experience in drug discovery including senior positions held at Xenova, TMO and Cubist Pharmaceuticals. Her areas of speciality include biotransformation and microbial natural products and she has a particular interest in active metabolites. Julia obtained her BSc and PhD degrees in Biochemistry from Imperial College, University of London.
Richard Phipps PhD
Head of Chemistry and Client Project Manager
Richard has over 20 years’ experience in analytical and purification chemistry. He obtained his PhD in natural products chemistry at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, followed by post-doctoral positions at the University of Otago, New Zealand and at the Center of Microbial Technology at the Technical University of Denmark. Richard leads the chemistry team at Hypha. He also manages client projects.
Vincent Poon PhD
Head of Biocatalysis
Vincent gained his PhD in Systems Biology at the University of Warwick working in natural products discovery, and subsequently was awarded a Warwick AMR Early Career Fellowship supervised by Prof. Gregory Challis to probe the biosynthesis of newly identified natural products. Vincent later joined Hypha Discovery and with over 12 years of interdisciplinary research, he currently manages all biocatalysis work at Hypha. Vincent led the development of Hypha’s PolyCYPs and PolyUGT enzymes.
Xianfu Li PhD
MetID and Bioanalytical Lead Scientist
Xianfu specialises in metabolite identification and bioanalysis. He obtained his PhD at the University of Sheffield working in asymmetric catalysis, followed by a post-doctoral position exploring transition metal catalysed hydrogen transfer process for API synthesis at GSK and University of Leeds. Prior to joining Hypha, Xianfu worked at Evotec for 11 years, initially as a senior synthetic chemist, and subsequently specialising in metabolite identification and LC-MS/MS analysis in Evotec’s DMPK group.
Hypha Discovery is a UK-based CRO supporting pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies worldwide through the production of metabolites and new derivatives of drugs and agrochemicals in discovery and development.